3 Answers
3

download zip

You can always downsload an archived JDK from oracle. This can be moved to an appropriate position, and extracted there.

Java doesn't need much setup. Setting JAVA_HOME in in a profile file is a good idea, and putting the JDK/bin - dir into the path. However ...

If there is already an OpenJDK installed, or Java-1.5, it can be more complicated. There are often a lot of links in /etc/alternatives for Java - check that out.

central machine as repository

I don't know if it is possible to use the central pc as a proxy. to install the JDK there, and tell the other machines to use it as source. Keywords for a search: repository, apt-get, proxy.

suboption/variant:

Copy the so downloaded .dep-files to the clients, and use dpkg -i xy.deb to install it.

Network vodoo

You can use a few commands, put into a script, to use the central machine as router, to visit the internet from the clients. You need 2 commands on the clients too. Then you could use apt-get from the clients to access the internet.

I don't understand these scripts myself - only in sofar, to adopt it to my needs. :) This is my 'gateway.sh' script, to be run on the router with sudo:

Just a few lines. Now you would start sudo gateway.sh and wait for the clients. These wouldn't do much:

sudo route add default gw 192.168.32.8

whatever the IP of the central machine is. This could already be sufficient. Maybe you would modify the DNS-Server, to have one of your ISPs DNS in there:

sudo edit /etc/resolv.conf

A running avahi-daemon and NetworkManager could interfere with the clients, mainly.

conclusion:

For the third and first way, I know how to do it exactly, but the most elegant way would probably be No. 2, but I never did it myself. So I would recommend to search a bit, or wait a little, maybe somebody knows how to do it, or how to do something better.